Can you see the ghost in this picture? Spirits haunt derelict asylum
THEY are haunting images of bedlam - an Australian lunatic asylum that opened more than 170 years ago.
An exhibition by photographer Yvette Worboys titled Ghosts has captured eerie images of the former Gladesville Mental Hospital, in Sydney, which opened in November 1838 and closed in 1997.
Worboys, who has lived in the area most of her life, said she was drawn to the partly derelict hospital by its residual energy.
"There is quite a presence, an energy, there," Worboys said.
More than 1200 patients are buried in unmarked graves on the property. Ms Worboys said psychics asked to analyse her photos believed there was a presence in them.
"Mediums have looked at the images and seen a presence there," she said.
One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.
The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.
The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, like whether a computer program will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. The studies include more than 1,000 subjects.
Some scientists say the report deserves to be published, in the name of open inquiry; others insist that its acceptance only accentuates fundamental flaws in the evaluation and peer review of research in the social sciences.
“It’s craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is allowing this work in,” Ray Hyman, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University Oregon and longtime critic of ESP research, said. “I think it’s just an embarrassment for the entire field.”
The editor of the journal, Charles Judd, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, said the paper went through the journal’s regular review process. “Four reviewers made comments on the manuscript,” he said, “and these are very trusted people.”
All four decided that the paper met the journal’s editorial standards, Dr. Judd added, even though “there was no mechanism by which we could understand the results.”
But many experts say that is precisely the problem. Claims that defy almost every law of science are by definition extraordinary and thus require extraordinary evidence. Neglecting to take this into account — as conventional social science analyses do — makes many findings look far more significant than they really are, these experts say.
“Several top journals publish results only when these appear to support a hypothesis that is counterintuitive or attention-grabbing,” Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, wrote by e-mail. “But such a hypothesis probably constitutes an extraordinary claim, and it should undergo more scrutiny before it is allowed to enter the field.”…
The church has no Facebook pages . Any author of a Facebook page under the Church name uses that name illegally.
Persons should be wary of joining any other website that infers it is an official website for the Church and should under no circumstances pay money to any person claiming to represent the church.
The church is a legal charity and the raising of funds in the church name by any persons other than the church managers is a criminal act..
UPDATED, 9 April: No tears were shed when Ian Lawman, a British TV psychic and exorcist, was laid to rest on a windswept hill in the West Midlands today. I was among those who attended his interment, which turned out to be a fun event for all involved, including Ian. In fact, he happily posed for photographs before his burial (right). As you will have guessed by now, Ian - whose TV appearances have included Most Haunted, I'm Famous and Frightened, and Fit and Fearless - was not dead when they buried him. And he doesn't plan to be dead when they dig him up again in seven days' time. So why has the self-styled "bad boy of the psychic world" decided to subject himself to the ordeal of being entombed in a coffin six feet underground, beneath two tonnes of soil? To raise £10,000 for The Blue Lamp Foundation, which was set up by PC David Rathband for injured emergency service workers after he was blinded when gunman Raoul Moat went on a rampage last year. The buried-alive event took place .........
"IT’S NOT everyday that a Spiritualist book is published by a world renowned physical medium. As such, I was delighted to receive Stewart Alexander’s Memoirs recently and have spent many a happy hour savouring the treasure trove of anecdotes and thought provoking views expressed therein.
Stewart Alexander has been involved with Spiritualism for over 40 years, firstly as a researcher and then combined with his work and development as a physical medium. For these reasons, this book offers the reader a quite unique perspective on the subjects he covers.
For we are not reading the views of a purely ‘armchair observer’ of physical phenomena here. We get to see things from the actual medium’s point of view - from behind the seance room curtain. This in itself offers the reader an invaluable opportunity." Read the full story at The Psychic Times
Called Paranormal Investigators : Australian Paranormal Media the show can be seen on TVS on Monday evenings at 9.30pm
From the producer Attila Kaldy :
OK, so here it is: I’m a freelance producer and research coordinator of a paranormal investigative organisation in Sydney.
You can say that I have been to some really freaky places over the years. Besides chasing the unexplained, my passion is to convey the weird side of this great continent to a large audience. I guess this was the main motivation for my interest in production.
I have taken a lot of journeys, experienced many adventures while exploring the unexplained (hauntings, UFOs, … you know the things folks don’t really like to talk about).
Kanova Productions basically says, ‘Hey, it’s OK to come out and share your experiences with others’. And the people who do are normal everyday folk looking for validation. That’s all!
So what if certain individuals are judgemental? Think of it this way: they are the ones lacking the valuable experience that you had.
Back to the story. In 2002 I produced a low budget UFO doco called The Oz Unknowns. I guess we all have to start somewhere. This was two years after establishing an investigative group in southwest Sydney. The Oz Unknowns featured three stories about Aussies experiencing bizarre aerial phenomena (UFOs).
When branching out into afterlife research, I released PI – Paranormal Investigators. Again, it was limited in the way we expect to see such a production. The material used was raw footage, taken from investigations, so it gave it that rustic, spooky feel.
When PI was aired in Sydney and Melbourne I was surprised how popular the series was.
After producing some trial documentaries, I decided to take an innovative approach to ghost hunting and created, produced Paranormal Investigators – The Challenge in 2008. A trainee was introduced, someone with no experience, chasing the paranormal through dark corridors and creepy forests.
Brought to our attention by Victor Zammit- a fascinating exert from Louise Harris's book which can be read for free on-line here
"Eventually, it was the turn of one of the substitute sitters to be greeted. As Rohan (the materialised spirit) was about to take his hands in welcome, the man sprang forward and grabbed him!
Throwing his arms around the spirit figure, he held on to him tightly, shouting, "I've got you!" The sitter was obviously convinced he had captured the draped medium in the act of duplicity, masquerading as a spirit form.
As Rohan's figure quickly dematerialised there was a loud groan from Alec in the cabinet. Then came a cry of pain as the ectoplasm swiftly returned to his body with the impact of a sledge-hammer.
The treacherous sitter fell dazed to the floor as the "solid" body he had held so tightly minutes before disappeared. I threw myself on him, desperately flailing with my hands, sobbing: "Oh don't! You'll kill my husband! You fool, you'll kill him!"
The man looked up at me, his eyes wide, terrified. The realisation dawned on him it had not been the medium he had grasped, but what it purported to be, a fully materialised spirit form.
Meanwhile the second impostor, taking advantage of the commotion that ensued, rushed to the window and pulled aside the closed curtains, having previously tampered with them during the "meditation" session earlier. This revealed his confederates outside the window. They had a battery of cameras focused on the seance room, on the cabinet in particular.
Can you see the ghost in this picture? Spirits haunt derelict asylum 
